When I book my own tickets I never bother filling out the middle name and its fine. Sometimes the check-in agents add the middle name, sometimes they don't. Nobody seems to care.

I have never used my middle names on any airline booking and have never had any issue with it what so ever. There is no need to have your middle name(s) included on your ticket.

My Chinese name in English characters causes no end of hassle especially as they're technically my first name and my regular English name is the middle name on my passport. Normally I put them all on flight bookings but my wife once left all the middle bits out and CX gave me all sorts of grief at check in. I think I ended up paying a fee to get it changed.

According to an fter, one shall call the police if cx fusses up

Ok, so I'm really worried now. I'm using AA miles for the first time and have 2, one-way bookings on CX. The first agent stressed to me how important the middle name was, so I gave it to her, no issues. I guess when I registered at AA I never put my middle name in the account, it's in there now. But to make this CX specific...can anyone tell me, on the "manage my booking" page on the CX site, what name should show up in the bottom left area? If the booking if CORRECT and valid and won't cause problems. Right now I have 3 bookings, on the AA site, 1 shows First Middle Last, one shows First Last, one shows First Last then when you click on like, more info it shows First Middle Last. However, on the CX site, all 3 simply show Last First and that's it.

Can someone with a middle name, who's flying successfully or unsuccessfully, tell me what it should say? The last damn thing I want is to show up in HK and be told I'm SOL then have to either buy a ticket, or use different points, or have to make a crazy expensive phone call and or have to pay to spend the night in a hotel, none of these things do I wanna do.

edit: As far as my last comment goes, in case it matters, I'm flying YVR-HKG on Air Canada, then on a separate ticket about 5 hours late HKG-BKK on the award ticket.

NObody cares about middle names and you won't have any issues with lack thereof.

As an aside: Many of us have 5+ middle names in our passports and they just wouldn't fit into most websites 'name' fields so we just pick the first one.

Also Known As (AKA)
 

For those of you that also has this F/M/L name on passport and F/L on FFP, my suggestion is to get an AKA on your passport. Don’t know about other countries, but I know you can add the AKA on the US passport (and Taiwan passport, I think). That way, if you ever get asked, just show him/her the AKA on your passport. Works every time:)

I would generally agree with you, but then why the need for multiple threads on the topic, and why does AA insist so much that the middle name is present?

5+ middle names - like the royals in Europe?

My first + middle names would not fit on tickets, and reversed depending on the traveling documents. I have no problem so far.

As long as you are not a Chinese with a two-part Chinese name as your first name then you should be fine.

Last Name: Chan
First Name: Tai Man (where "Man" see seen by Westerners as a middle name when in fact for a Chinese person both "Tai" and "Man" form part of the first name).

If only CHAN/TAI on ticket, then Chinese agents will be more strict.

Not sure about mainland China but HKG is quite strict about this. They'll direct you to the airline staff who will verify your details before adding an annotation to the boarding pass.

Hmmm ok, so it's more of an issue with Chinese names rather than western names?

Yes, as most people view that both words together form the first name. It is very, very unusual for a Chinese to omit the second word.

I have a non Chinese name. Passport has first middle and last name. My tickets are always issued without my middle name. No issues ever.

Been traveling for the better part of 3 decades, short, medium and long haul. Some trips with middle name and some with none. Never had an issue (Western name).